OpenAI and Microsoft have lost their final attempt to have Elon Musk\u2019s lawsuit dismissed, Bloomberg reports. A federal judge in Oakland, California, rejected the companies\u2019 motion to terminate the case and ruled that it should proceed to a jury trial. The trial is scheduled to begin in late April.<\/p>\n
Musk alleges that OpenAI\u2019s leadership, headed by Sam Altman, violated the startup\u2019s founding mission as a public charity when it accepted billions of dollars in investment from Microsoft and began transforming into a commercial entity. Musk was one of OpenAI\u2019s co-founders in 2015 and later founded his own artificial intelligence company, xAI, in 2023.<\/p>\n
OpenAI has called Musk\u2019s lawsuit baseless, saying it is part of a \u201clong-running campaign of harassment.\u201d The company emphasized that it remains focused on supporting the OpenAI Foundation, which it says is among the best-funded nonprofit organizations.<\/p>\n
However, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers declined to dismiss Musk\u2019s central claim that OpenAI breached its obligation to operate as a charitable organization. In her ruling, the judge noted that while the evidence is not definitive, Musk argues that his financial contribution was clearly intended as a charitable donation and was subject to two fundamental conditions: open-source development and the preservation of OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit status. According to the judge, these conditions were consistent with OpenAI\u2019s original charter and mission.<\/p>\n
The court also ruled that the fact Musk donated $38 million through an intermediary does not deprive him of the right to demand compliance with those conditions. A different conclusion, the judge said, would significantly weaken oversight mechanisms for enforcing obligations of charitable trusts.<\/p>\n
In addition, the judge allowed fraud claims to proceed. She cited internal correspondence from 2017 in which OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman initially reaffirmed the company\u2019s commitment to a nonprofit model but later acknowledged in a private note that public statements about such commitment may have been untrue.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s attorney, Marc Toberoff, said the ruling confirms the existence of substantial evidence that OpenAI\u2019s leadership knowingly misled Musk about the company\u2019s charitable mission in favor of personal enrichment.<\/p>\n
The judge also stated that it is up to the jury to determine whether Microsoft helped OpenAI breach its obligations to donors, including Musk. At the same time, she dismissed claims of Microsoft\u2019s \u201cunjust enrichment,\u201d noting the absence of any quasi-contractual relationship between Musk and the corporation.<\/p>\n
The conflict between Musk and Altman, once partners, has continued since 2024. Musk\u2019s xAI has become one of OpenAI\u2019s main competitors, and last year Altman\u2019s company rejected Musk\u2019s surprise offer to acquire the nonprofit\u2019s assets for $97.4 billion. Altman has described the lawsuit as an attempt to use the legal system to slow down a rival\u2019s development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":150989,"menu_order":0,"template":"","newscat":[9],"newstag":[],"issues":[],"class_list":["post-150988","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","newscat-novosti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/150988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"newscat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newscat?post=150988"},{"taxonomy":"newstag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newstag?post=150988"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=150988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}